V care Varsity

Jeet Thayil’s debut novel, the deftly and aptly titled Narcopolis is—like the polis in which it takes place—part cacophony, part symphony: a whirlwind of drugs, sex, violence, loves, lives, deaths, and more than anything, stories. “Bombay,” the book begins, “which obliterated its own history by changing its name and surgically altering its face, is the hero or heroin of this story.” As the title suggests, the book is about drugs and about place. But i...